Lock up your dairy!

So, turns out it rains quite abit here. Real proper RAIN rain. 
Like noah's ark, it's going to flood kind of rain. Like, all night lightening and thunder, sounding like bombs, kind of rain.

 Believe it or not, this is really heavy rain...I just havent managed to capture that.

 But even when it's raining there are fun things to show you. Surprisingly even a trip to the local supermarket can bring a little humour to our day...

And the funniest things are expensive, like dairy. I am seriously not getting my daily brie intake...

and there is absoloutely no chance of slipping it out of the store...really? security locking the cheese?

 It seems appropriate to add something aestheticly pleasing into each blog, something very travel-journal, so here you are - 

West Lake is where we live. We've also found out it seems to be a romantic setting for the locals. as well as acting as a motorbike race-course for loony 16 year old vietnamese chavs with no helmets and no common sense. sheesh, I sound like a mother.

Oh, and something else pretty cool was the oldest university in Hanoi fully equipped with turtle-filled ponds,

 beautiful hanging lanterns,

and two lovely men, sitting under a tree, playing a chilled game of what looks like chinese checkers.

Arrivederci...

Home, sweet new Home

I should probably ammend that title to house, new house, because it may be abit of an exaggeration to call it a home yet.

So we've moved in, and even though it definately isnt home it does have a view. The sort of view that makes me want to sleep up on the balcony amongst the laundry and washing lines purely so I can wake up to it and the birds can come and sing with the rabbits bobbing their heads like in a disney film...

I think Im getting abit carried away as there are probably just snakes and cockroaches and other squirmy bugs living in that green undergrowth rather than cute singing fluffy things.

STOP 

What I should really be informing you of is my new revelation about the road network here in Hanoi rather than something as unimportant as the house we will be living in for the next 4 months. 

Protective headgear is a major fashion statement.

 

 and who said the vietnamese didn't do road safety? 

 see...no one crashes; a safe a road network as anywhere. NAAT - it's merely coincidence that no one dies in this. Especially that boy - the one who just walks straight through it all right up to me. I really don't know him.

 

anyway, moving swiftly on -  saw some really cute kids today; just goes to show that not all the vietnamese are grumpy. 

I mean, what a complete dude.  

 

Lastly i will finish with three things you could do in Hanoi on a friday morning...

 

1. fancy buying an old rusty kind of broken fan that you could hang in your house like an ikea sculpture or lamp, but please keep your kids away because chances are they will probably catch some horrible horrible disease?

 

2. Maybe you fancy kitting out the whole fam in matching army wear, ive heard its erm, very 'AW10'.

3. Or, if you really wanted, you could attend a wedding at the Hanoi opera house for free, and spend your time constantly admiring the uncanny resemblance between the groom and James bond.

 

Hanoi; at first glance.

Well, here I am. Arrived. Lets keep this low-down short; the smells of noodle soup are calling me from this hotel room to the street...

This place is kind of like Italy. Or perhaps France. (But with a 13 hour plane journey rather than a quick hop across the channel, lots of jet-lag involved and pretty crappy coffee). With lots of coloured shutters and vespa’s and attempts at French bread. note: I have yet to try the french bread; I am purely making an assumption it won't come close to the real McCoy. 

 I have found the people to be, well, not polite for sure. Motorbikes rule here...I have nearly been run over a trillion times and pavements don't actually exist on most newer roads. And you know how green man means go? Well in NO way does this apply here. Green man means red man. In other words, don't bother crossing the road. Ever. Stick to your side of the street; think of the other side as another world if you like. But not a destination you are able to get to. Unless you want to be dead.

Don't trust taxi drivers. They have a little foot thing that they rig to boost the meter. So today we travelled about 800yrds and were charged 119,000VND (about £4)! 

Cheeky bugger.

 So, there is no sort of zoning or shop regulation here. Like when you play lego; everything plopped here and there. Some guy fixing metal, next to a really fancy clothes designer, next to some children cracking open snails whilst eating what looked like pumkin seeds, next to a lady selling every make of cigarettes you can think of from a massive basket on her hip, next to some men, hm, gambling?

I dont play Lego...anymore, I promise.

   

 But all things aside, I did see this mint 
big-ass mausoleum today which holds the body of Ho Chi Minh; he lies there, quite grey and mouldy, but still very much preserved. Pretty cool gross. Had men in white suits frog marching in front of it and everything.

So here is where I will sign off; lets end with an old man sitting? Just sitting, that's all. Watching the world.

leaving, arriving and erm, fish feet and the jonas brothers

so I left, and I arrived. Newcastle to Dubai to Bangkok.

It was scarier than I imagined, packing my whole life for one year into one suitcase. But slipping in my newly opened birthday present made it feel a little bit more ok, the suitcase a little bit more complete;

                             Matt Smith I guess makes everything a little bit more ok.

 We then proceeded to thailand; the land of smiles...and, apparently, now it is the land of getting weird little fish to nibble at the dead skin cells on your feet and call it spa treatment...

 ____________________________________________

I was tired, very tired, like, passing out tired. 

but this didnt stop me feeling obliged to go listen to the obvious PARTY going on in Siam. I could hear it from the hotel. They were celebrating the Queens Birthday...a national holiday where you buy your mum stuff; Khun Mae. 

and hey, you'd never guess, but this band were like the Jonas Brothers, but Thai, and FUNNIER. baha, does music get any better? 

note: of COURSE music gets better than this - even the Jonas Brothers are better than this. Whey, even Taylor Momsen is better than this.

 he had good shoes. but his name was Mouse. so erm, that counteracts his cool shoes.

Hanoi was calling us, and so we said fairwell to Bangkok. I will check in when I have found my feet. I dont even know what to expect yet so I dont really know what to say. 

But hey - watch this space!